BEING A NIGHT SCENE, IN WHICH MISS GERTRUDE CHATTESWORTH, BEING ADJURED
BY AUNT BECKY, MAKES ANSWER.
In Aunt Becky's mind, the time could not be far off when the odd sort of
relations existing between the Belmont family and Mr. Dangerfield must
be defined. The Croesus himself, indeed, was very indulgent. He was
assiduous and respectful; but he wisely abstained from pressing for an
immediate decision, and trusted to reflection and to Aunt Becky's good
offices; and knew that his gold would operate by its own slow, but sure,
gravitation.
At one time he had made up his mind to be peremptory--and politely to
demand an unequivocal 'yes,' or 'no.' But a letter reached him from
London; it was from a great physician there. Whatever was in it, the
effect was to relieve his mind of an anxiety. He never, indeed, looked
anxious, or moped like an ordinary man in blue-devils. But his servants
knew when anything weighed upon his spirits, by his fierce, short,
maniacal temper. But with the seal of that letter the spell broke, the
evil spirit departed for a while, and the old jocose, laconic irony came
back, and glittered whitely in the tall chair by the fire, and sipped
its claret after dinner, and sometimes smoked its long pipe and grinned
into the embers of the grate. At Belmont, there had been a skirmish over
the broiled drum-sticks at supper, and the ladies had withdrawn in
towering passions to their nightly devotions and repose.
Gertrude had of late grown more like herself, but was quite resolute
against the Dangerfield alliance, which Aunt Becky fought for, the more
desperately that in their private confidences under the poplar trees she
had given the rich cynic of the silver spectacles good assurance of
success.
Puddock drank tea at Belmont--nectar in Olympus--that evening. Was ever
lieutenant so devoutly romantic? He had grown more fanatical and abject
in his worship. He spoke less, and lisped in very low tones. He sighed
often, and sometimes mightily; and ogled unhappily, and smiled
lackadaisically. The beautiful damsel was, in her high, cold way, kind
to the guest, and employed him about the room on little commissions, and
listened to his speeches without hearing them, and rewarded them now and
then with the gleam of a smile, which made his gallant little heart
flutter up to his solitaire, and his honest powdered head giddy.
'I marvel, brother,' ejaculated Aunt Becky, suddenly, appearing in the
parlour, where the general had made himself comfortable over his novel,
and opening her address with a smart stamp on the floor. The veteran's
heart made a little jump, and he looked up over his gold spectacles.
'I marvel, brother, what you can mean, desire, or intend, by all this
ogling, sighing, and love-making; 'tis surely a strange way of
forwarding Mr. Dangerfield's affair.'
He might have blustered a little, as he sometimes did, for she had
startled him, and her manner was irritating; but she had caught him in a
sentimental passage between Lovelace and Miss Harlowe, which always
moved him--and he showed no fight at all; but his innocent little light
blue eyes looked up wonderingly and quite gently at her.
'Who--I? _What_ ogling, Sister Becky?'
'You! tut! That foolish, ungrateful person, Lieutenant Puddock; what can
you propose to yourself, brother, in bringing Lieutenant Puddock here? I
hate him.'
'Why, what about Puddock--what has he done?' asked the general, with
round eyes still, and closing his book on his finger.
'What has he done! Why, he's at your daughter's feet,' cried Aunt Becky,
with scarlet cheeks, and flashing eyes; 'and she--artful gipsy, has
brought him there by positively making love to him.'
'Sweet upon Toodie (the general's old pet name for Gertrude); why, half
the young fellows are--you know--pooh, pooh,' and the general stood up
with his back to the fire--looking uneasy; for, like many other men, he
thought a woman's eyes saw further in such a case than his.
'Do you wish the young hussy--do you--to marry Lieutenant Puddock? I
should not wonder! Why, of course, her fortune you and she may give away
to whom you like; but remember, she's young, and has been much admired,
brother; and may make a great match; and in our day, young ladies were
under direction, and did not marry without apprising their parents or
natural guardians. Here's Mr. Dangerfield, who proposes great
settlements. Why won't she have him? For my part, I think we're little
better than cheats; and I mean to write to-morrow morning and tell the
poor gentleman that you and I have been bamboozling him to a purpose,
and meant all along to marry the vixen to a poor lieutenant in your
corps. Speak truth, and shame the devil, brother; for my part, I'm sick
of the affair; I'm sick of deception, ingratitude, and odious fools.
Aunt Becky had vanished in a little whirlwind, leaving the general with
his back to the fire, looking blank and uncomfortable. And from his
little silver tankard he poured out a glassful of his mulled claret, not
thinking, and smelled to it deliberately, as he used to do when he was
tasting a new wine, and looked through it, and set the glass down,
forgetting he was to drink it, for his thoughts were elsewhere.
On reaching her bed-room, which she did with impetuous haste, Aunt
Becky shut the door with a passionate slam, and said, with a sort of
choke and a sob, 'There's nought but ingratitude on earth--the odious,
odious, _odious_ person!'
And when, ten minutes after, her maid came in, she found Aunt Rebecca
but little advanced in her preparations for bed; and her summons at the
door was answered by a fierce and shrilly nose-trumpeting, and a stern
'Come in, hussy--are you deaf, child?' And when she came in, Aunt Becky
was grim, and fussy, and her eyes red.
Miss Gertrude was that night arrived just on that dim and delicious
plateau--that debatable land upon which the last waking reverie and the
first dream of slumber mingle together in airy dance and shifting
colours--when, on a sudden, she was recalled to a consciousness of her
grave bed-posts, and damask curtains, by the voice of her aunt.
Sitting up, she gazed on the redoubted Aunt Becky through the lace of
her _bonnet de nuit_, for some seconds, in a mystified and incredulous
way.
Mistress Rebecca Chattesworth, on the other hand, had drawn the
curtains, and stood, candle in hand, arrayed in her night-dress, like a
ghost, only she had on a pink and green quilted dressing-gown loosely
over it.
She was tall and erect, of course; but she looked softened and strange;
and when she spoke, it was in quite a gentle, humble sort of way, which
was perfectly strange to her niece.
'Don't be frightened, sweetheart,' said she, and she leaned over and
with her arm round her neck, kissed her. 'I came to say a word, and just
to ask you a question. I wish, indeed I do--Heaven knows, to do my duty;
and, my dear child, will you tell me the whole truth--will you tell me
truly?--You will, when I ask it as a kindness.'
There was a little pause, and Gertrude looked with a pale gaze upon her
aunt.
'Are you,' said Aunt Becky--'do you, Gertrude--do you like Lieutenant
Puddock?'
'Lieutenant Puddock!' repeated the girl, with the look and gesture of a
person in whose ear something strange has buzzed.
'Because, if you really are in love with him, Gertie; and that he likes
you; and that, in short--' Aunt Becky was speaking very rapidly, but
stopped suddenly.
'In love with Lieutenant Puddock!' was all that Miss Gertrude said.
'Now, do tell me, Gertrude, if it be so--tell _me_, dear love. I know
'tis a hard thing to say,' and Aunt Becky considerately began to fiddle
with the ribbon at the back of her niece's nightcap, so that she need
not look in her face; 'but, Gertie, tell me truly, do you like him;
and--and--why, if it be so, I will mention Mr. Dangerfield's suit no
more. There now--there's all I want to say.'
'Lieutenant Puddock!' repeated young Madam in the nightcap; and by this
time the film of slumber was gone; and the suspicion struck her somehow
in altogether so comical a way that she could not help laughing in her
aunt's sad, earnest face.
'Fat, funny little Lieutenant Puddock!--was ever so diverting a
disgrace? Oh! dear aunt, what have I done to deserve so prodigious a
suspicion?'
It was plain, from her heightened colour, that her aunt did not choose
to be laughed at.
'What have you done?' said she, quite briskly; 'why--what have you
done?' and Aunt Becky had to consider just for a second or two, staring
straight at the young lady through the crimson damask curtains. 'You
have--you--you--why, what have you _done_? and she covered her confusion
by stooping down to adjust the heel of her slipper.
'Oh! it's delightful--plump little Lieutenant Puddock!' and the graver
her aunt looked the more irrepressibly she laughed; till that lady,
evidently much offended, took the young gentlewoman pretty roundly to
task.
'Well! I'll tell you what you have done,' said she, almost fiercely. 'As
absurd as he is, you have been twice as sweet upon him as he upon you;
and you have done your endeavour to fill his brain with the notion that
you are in love with him, young lady; and if you're not, you have acted,
I promise you, a most unscrupulous and unpardonable part by a most
honourable and well-bred gentleman--for that character I believe he
bears. Yes--you may laugh, Madam, how you please; but he's allowed, I
say, to be as honest, as true, as fine a gentleman as--as--'
'As ever surprised a weaver,' said the young lady, laughing till she
almost cried. In fact, she was showing in a new light, and becoming
quite a funny character upon this theme. And, indeed, this sort of
convulsion of laughing seemed so unaccountable on natural grounds to
Aunt Rebecca, that her irritation subsided into perplexity, and she
began to suspect that her extravagant merriment might mean possibly
something which she did not quite understand.
'Well, niece, when you have quite done laughing at nothing, you will,
perhaps, be so good as to hear me. I put it to you now, young lady, as
your relation and your friend, once for all, upon your sacred
honour--remember you're a Chattesworth--upon the honour of a
Chattesworth' (a favourite family form of adjuration on serious
occasions with Aunt Rebecca), 'do you like Lieutenant Puddock?'
It was now Miss Gertrude's turn to be nettled, and to remind her
visitor, by a sudden flush in her cheek and a flash from her eyes, that
she was, indeed, a Chattesworth; and with more disdain than, perhaps,
was quite called for, she repelled the soft suspicion.
'I protest, Madam,' said Miss Gertrude, ''tis _too_ bad. Truly, Madam,
it _is vastly_ vexatious to have to answer so strange and affronting a
question. If you ever took the trouble, aunt, to listen to, or look at,
Lieutenant Puddock, you might--'
'Well, niece,' quoth Aunt Becky, interrupting, with a little toss of her
head, 'young ladies weren't quite so hard to please in my time, and I
can't see or hear that he's so much worse than others.'
'I'd sooner die than have him,' said Miss Gertie, peremptorily.
'Then, I suppose, if ever, and whenever he asks you the question
himself, you'll have no hesitation in telling him so?' said Aunt Becky,
with becoming solemnity.
'Laughable, ridiculous, comical, and absurd, as I always thought and
believed Lieutenant Puddock to be, I yet believe the asking such a
question of me to be a stretch of absurdity, from which his breeding,
for he is a gentleman, will restrain him. Besides, Madam, you can't
possibly be aware of the subjects on which he has invariably discoursed
whenever he happened to sit by me--plays and players, and candied fruit.
Really, Madam, it is too absurd to have to enter upon one's defence
against so incredible an imagination.'
Aunt Rebecca looked steadily for a few seconds in her niece's face, then
drew a long breath, and leaning over, kissed her again on the forehead,
and with a grave little nod, and looking on her again for a short space,
without saying a word more, she turned suddenly and left the room.
Miss Gertrude's vexation again gave way to merriment; and her aunt, as
she walked sad and stately up stairs, heard one peal of merry laughter
after another ring through her niece's bed-room. She had not laughed so
much for three years before; and this short visit cost her, I am sure,
two hours' good sleep at least.